ABB’s Rant about the shit on NBC that made my afro hurt…#1. All women are not fretting over 'having it all'.

And since when has having it all automatically included having a child?

Shame on you, Dawn Fratangelo!

A bitch didn’t sign on for that definition of ‘it all’. Cease reporting on the concerns of women as if poor women, rural women and single women do not exist. We do…we have issues too…and we are a part of that workforce you were speaking of. While working mothers struggle to hit their goals…a bitch prefers 'goals' to 'have it all'…other women at work also struggle to hit our goals. Add us all up, Dawn, and you’ve got a lot of women who are dealing with a lot of shit…real world shit that includes, but is not limited to, the issue of parenting and working outside the home at the same damned time.

Jesus to Gawd and back again, this shit is so blatantly from a position of privilege that a bitch questions the legitimacy of a study that clearly didn’t talk to anyone outside of the upper middle class bubble.

Who the fuck wrote that shit? What did they do, go to Greenwich and start knocking on doors?

Pretty close. Ms. Fratangelo’s report sites a study done by Careerbuilder.com…and Lawd knows that Careerbuilder.com is the first source you think of when searching for demographically balanced and culturally diverse research on America’s workforce!

Lawd, give me strength.

#2. A bitch works…I’m single with no kids…and my ass struggles too. I struggle to find a balance between work, family (yeah, we have them too), the second job that is co-guardianship of a mentally challenged adult (and don’t sleep, there are more of us out there than you think), service to my community and the oft dreamed of but oh so elusive social life I’ve heard tell of.

Don’t act like the only people scaling back on hours are parents. Shit, some are scaling back to assist their parents. A bitch did a major lifestyle change to move back home and participate more actively in my brother’s life. Yet my ass can't remember the last time someone covered something close to my reality.

If an alien from Mars studied America from the perspective of television and news how balanced would their concept be?

Mmhmm, think about it.

Leave the ivory tower, Dawn, and take a subway ride...you need to experience some shit beyond the Upper Trendy Side of NYC.

#3 Since the report dealt with the challenges facing working mothers, a bitch thinks it would have been a great opportunity to address some shit. Single parenting challenges…divorced and remarried with kids from several sets of parents challenges…same-sex couple challenges…and the challenges of poor women and the ever increasing working poor.

Report or step back and exit stage left. Glossing over the diverse reality women face today in favor of a homogenous generalization is bullshit.

Oh and a quick question…just wondering…do father’s feel guilt over missing big events too? Or did Careerbuilder.com only question women?

And…um, Dawn…wouldn’t that be a curious question to follow up on? Are working men struggling to have it all…and if not, why the fuck not?

There are certain segments in society who eat up reports like this. There are people who still resent the fact that some women who have children work outside the home. This report sounds like another way to lay a guilt trip on women with kids who have jobs outside the home.

I hate this stuff. Yesterday, there were two BBC "news" reports on how "scientists show" that unmarried people die far younger that any other demographic. The picture is of two white plump male and female hands with rings on them, joined. Only buried somewhere in there way deep down is the fact that they mean to say smokers die younger, alcoholics die younger, and drug users die younger, and those people tend to live alone. What does that have to do with whether Jesus and the federal government have blessed me with a legal partner? Choosing to live alone is not necessarily choosing not to have friends, lovers, and others who care about me. Die, compulsorily heteronormative crap!

These stupid studies make my afro hurt, too, and I couldn't pull off an afro if my life depended on it.

I am not struggling with 'having it all', because I'm just struggling to get by day to day. I'm not rich, just the kind of middle class where we both work and have very little between us and poverty, if we were to get ill or lose a job, we'd be in trouble pretty quickly.

Seems like so many of these studies, NBC, Salon.com, etc., focus only on the wealthy, the middle class, or the poor, but never really all three. I would love that. And, also, yeah, let's talk about men and their issues. Let's make it a study that is inclusive. How hard would that be?

I'm not struggling to have it all. Hell, I am not even struggling to have it "some". I am just working to make sure that my family has everything that they NEED, not necessarily want. And in my line of work, health insurance is a NEED.

My heart goes out to single working women. My mother raised me and I thank God that I came from a single parent household because the lower you are on [so-called] society's standard, the more you are able to see, at times. Since I am stereotypically at the bottom of the barrel of when it comes to how I was raised, I can see my side and others. It's funny how people that are far up society's ladder can't see us in the middle or lower class. So what gives them the knowledge of knowing what working women want. When I was growing up and watching my mom, from what I saw, what working women wanted was a day off.

J, I guess I fear that even when they do research across class divides (like, they consult someone other than a journalist for their data), the journalist in charge of reporting the information skews it to be about bourgeois white heteronormative "ideals" anyway. Given the fact that all these BWH people do nothing but complain about how miserable it is to "choose" between "a career" and "a family," I'd say it's time to stop considering anything they do as "ideal."

Here are the links for those gross BBC reports. My memory lied about the picture, which, though it shows male and female white hands with rings, does not depict the bourgeois plumpness I recalled in my reptilian-commie brain.

What these folks are continuously saying every single time they do these studies is that women should stay home. Isn't it curious that these studies are constantly being performed on women. As if women are abusing their children for wanting to or having to work. Father neglect their kids so much it isn't even funny. Even when they are with them they are often not there. I saw this curiosity just two days ago. A man his wife ant thier three children came into a coffee shop. The father took out his portable playstaion, plugged his earphones in and started to play his game. His family was sitting right there. His eldest son went and sat beside some other guy who was also playing a game and talked to him. The kid did not siddle up to his own father to inquire about the father's game. The mother took care of the other kids and that was that. I thought this is bizarre. This man is completely ignoring his family. If you go out with your family you should spend time with them. Or maybe that is just insane thinking. Media refuses to do studies about how father's ignore thier kids. No, they want to crucify women instead. This is a woman hating society in which we live! Look at how wehn they take about single parent households the stories somehow become about how women are dropping the ball. The mothers are the ones staying with thier kids. The fathers are walking away leaving thier kids in poverty. Somehow medi does not look at it from that angle.

I say to all women, do what you like. Hell yeah, have it all and get seconds if you can.Life is too short not!

I can see why your afro hurt AB.These reports make moms of all types and women of all types have wars against each other. If a woman works outside the home its her choice. If a woman chooses to stay at home to raise her kids, so what, it's her choice.

I cannot stand the media how they complicate such simple facts of life.

What? You mean women who work but don't have kids may also have families? No way! Never heard of it. Never heard of no woman needing to go take care of her brother either. Preposterous!

/snark

Seriously, between the media telling me that as a working mom, I'm obviously missing out, and as a 30something I'm too old to get a good man, and as a feminist I'm screwing myself and no man really wants me anyway, and... well you get the idea.

Doesn't General Electric own the majority of NBC? General Electric, among numerous other things, manufactors consumer products.

I swear these news programs click a few buttons on a computer screen and check a few boxes and VOILA! A story is spit out. I can think of a huge list of things that they never report on. Originality and usefulness is seriously lacking in the news today.

I am also sick and tired of the whole "opt-out" name for women who do leave the work force.

I call BULLSHIT.

Its not opting out if the work environment is an unwelcoming, sexist, racist, homophobic place. Its not opting out when a woman's reproductive abilities is seen as a liability and when women are constantly belittled and harassed for exhibiting 'female traits'.

At least in my field a lot of women leave the work force not because they would rather be at home but because they would rather not work in an environment that treats them like shit.

The language of opting out implies a choice that doesn't really exist. Women you can afford to are *opting out* of a crappy working situation not necessarily *opting for* being a homemaker.

ABB..Gawd knows, I loves jah, but...As a 50 hour a week working mother to 3 I have to decide between living in a house in a safe area ( read: not high end) or an apartment.) Yes, I would love for my kids to have the better things in life, but rightnow just the "THINGS IN LIFE" make me work outside the home 50 hours a week...Where is this balance that folks talk about all the time...I sure as hell ain't foung it yet!?

"Are working men struggling to have it all…and if not, why the fuck not?"

As long as men have the option of waiting until their late 40's to find and impregnate a woman half their age, while a woman who waits that long sees the end of menses around the corner, the biological deck is going to be stacked against women.

Any Study or media crap that puts women in a square box is useless. I am a single working mom, I work for what my child and I need, not what we want. I don't relate to that BS at all. What is wrong with people? ugh.

Most people these days have a choice whether they want to have children, particularly if one is in the middle class. Perhaps these parenting folk should have thought more seriously about if they really had the time, energy, and resources to parent before starting the “life is so hard” whine.

I had to read your blog again. It is interesting. I don't understand why you constantly use the word BITCH. Lets not use such harsh belitting terms as terms of indearment. Besides that, I must admit that the comment, "I did it because my afro hurt," was pretty amazing. I like how you humerously and factually wrote about the strugle of the working mother and the increase in poverty.

Men are allowed to abandon their children and families because the blame for everything is placed on women. "Parenting" is still really "mothering." Short biographies of men often don't include their children, whereas women's always do. In fact, a man's biography may expound on his career and say nothing of any relatives, but a woman's will name her parents and their occupations, then her husband(s) and child(ren), before, possibly, mentioning something else about her.

Clark Lee, it's more gender than age. Men who wait until their 40s to become fathers could do so in order to save up enough to be the primary caregivers, thus allowing the 20-something mothers to work during their most financially productive years. But, oh, no. Why should they?

Jerks have the luxury of being jerks because someone is picking up the slack. As long as the woman w/ the three kids takes shit from the man ignoring them, he can do what he likes. Maybe for her, having the jerk around is easier than officially raising the kids by herself. You could refuse to clean, cook, or do laundry for a jerk, but you can't ignore the kids, and you're just going to lose anyway. You'll just end up living in filth. Jerks can wait you out because they know you care and they don't.

This bitch converted her 'fro to locs almost three years ago, but her nappy roots hurt in empathy.

THANK YOU for reminding me once again why this bitch has to stay away from network news and most mainstream media in general.

Women simply can't catch a break no matter what. Working moms should stay home with their kids. Single moms should be married. Women without kids should be getting pregnant by any means necessary or, if they're past childbearing age, they should just go away. It's all code for "stay the fuck in your place."

Ever read "The Handmaid's Tale"? Still one of my all-time favorite novels.

First of all, where do I sign up for a job like "work-life expert"? Do they offer that class at trade & technical college? If I could scam lawyers into paying me for my work-life expertise, I probably could have--or get away with--it all. Especially if all I need to come up with is the insight that "creative scheduling is key."

Second, why on earth were you wasting your precious (to your readers) energy watching NBC Nightly News? As Vera points out, they pander to their market--that is, the demographic for which their sponsors will pay the most. To the limited extent that the "news" content is more than a vehicle to carry advertising, it serves as propaganda advancing the interests of the network's corporate parent, as anonymous says. You can be sure that a report on the circumstances of "other" women--you know, the ones who "choose" underpaid or demeaning jobs, or who "opt" into struggling through the bureaucratic hell of inadequate social services for aging or disabled relatives--would be even more offensive.